Source wine and cheese locally for simple entertaining

Roasted tomatoes with White Gold fior di latte cheese

Photograph by: Gwendolyn Richards
, Postmedia News

When entertaining for the holiday season, wine and cheese are about as natural a pairing as red and green.

A simple cheese plate featuring some of the diverse cheeses produced locally is both festive and easy. And there are plenty of options when it comes to the selection produced here in Alberta, from creamy chèvres to spiced Goudas and much more between.

Put together a hard cheese, like a Gouda or pecorino, a soft one such as chèvre and something out of the ordinary (a blue, perhaps), add a bit of fruit, chutneys, jams or nuts for contrast and it’s a party-pleasing plate.

Another option is to serve up fresh ricotta with a little drizzle of olive oil and maybe a few grinds of fresh pepper and baguette slices or crackers.

A good one, new to the market, comes from the White Gold Cheese Factory in Calgary where Frank Fiorini and Paul Campanella have just begun producing goat-milk cheeses, to join the cow milk ones they’ve been selling since July 2011. Using techniques used by their families for more than three centuries in Italy, the cousins make fior di latte, ricotta, trecce (a braided cow’s-milk cheese), buratta, burini, caciocavall (flavoured with rosemary or hot chili peppers), caprino and more. The techniques are all Italian, but the milk comes from farms near Lethbridge and Innisfail.

White Gold uses whole milk — including all that delicious cream — in their cheeses, giving them great flavour and texture.

The fior di latte is made into a variety of sizes from little 10-gram balls, all the way up to baseball-sized ones weighing 250 grams. Fiorini said they will also soon offer a pearl-sized, 2.5-gram ball.

White Gold cheeses can be found in a number stores in both Edmonton and Calgary, but the store will also ship anywhere in the province. (For more information and to order, check out fiordilatte.com.)

An incredibly easy appetizer for a dinner party is to serve up fior di latte with tomatoes that have been roasted with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. This would also work well as part of a cheese plate for those hosting more guests.

Meanwhile, for the times when someone else is playing host, a bottle of wine is an easy and welcome gift to bring along as thanks. From those flavoured with fruits to honey wines — known as meads — there is a variety to choose from when drinking and gifting local, including these three.

Field Stone Fruit Wines

This family-run winery located just outside of Strathmore, east of Calgary, bottles up regular and dessert wines flavoured with berries, cherries and other fruit.

Ranging from dry to the sweet dessert versions — good for post-meal sipping — the wines come in a number of flavour’s, including strawberry-rhubarb, black currant and Saskatoon berry.

All of the wines are made from fruit grown in the province.

Drink them on their own, or combine with spirits for festive martinis. (Recipes can be found on the winery’s website, fieldstonefruitwines.com.)

Bottles can be purchased at the winery, at liquor stores in both Calgary and Edmonton or online from their website. They will ship anywhere in Alberta in cases of six, including their sampler packages.

Birds and Bees Organic Winery and Meadery

This winery and meadery, formerly known as En Sante, offers organic fruit wines, including raspberry and rhubarb — all of which are made with fruit from their own orchards and gardens in Brosseau, east of Edmonton.

Wines are available in both Edmonton and Calgary.

Fallentimber Meadery

Honey wines, or meads, are a more unusual gift but the family at Fallentimber have several types to ensure there’s something for most tastes.

Along with more traditional versions, such as dry, sweet and oaked meads, Fallentimber is also offering cinnamon flavoured and a Cyser — a cider-mead hybrid flavoured with hand-picked crab apples.

Find their meads at the Kingsland Farmers’ Market in Calgary or in numerous liquor stores in both Edmonton and Calgary. Or take a trip to see the Ryan family farm near Water Valley — southwest of Cremona — and pick up some bottles of mead, honey or beeswax candles.

This looks particularly pretty when using tomatoes still attached to the vine, but any small tomatoes will do. Cherry tomatoes will likely need less time in the oven. A little sprinkle of flaked sea salt just before serving is very nice.

1 lb. (500 g) tomatoes

1 - 2 tablespoons (15 - 30 mL) olive oil

pinch or two salt, plus more for sprinkling

freshly ground pepper

1/2 lb. (250 g) ball of fior di latte

Preheat oven to 400 F (200C). Set the tomatoes in a baking dish and drizzle over the olive oil. Sprinkle on a pinch or two of salt and freshly ground pepper. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until the skins have started to split and the tomatoes look soft. Serve with fior di latte. Sprinkle over more salt and pepper just before serving, if desired.

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